Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Cecile Andrews Research shows amazing results when people come together and build social ties: People are healthier, happier and live longer. One study found that social isolation is as bad for you as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
The volcanic eruption is also of interest to environmental researchers who can, now that the air-traffic has been stopped, measure how the atmosphere changes when it is released from the burden of aviation’s emissions: “This is a huge experiment with the environment that we could never afford to do otherwise…”, says Kjell Aleklett, professor in global energy systems at Uppsala University.
Growth is only possible when energy flow is increasing. It is pretty simple really. When energy flow is increasing in each subsequent time period it is possible to increase the amount of work devoted to increasing the asset base of society. Alternatively, if the energy flow is decreasing…
Get back to where you once belonged. Get your hands dirty, with this week’s grow-op on Radio Ecoshock. We’ll hear from the young farmers movement, with film maker and dirt farmer Severine von Tscharner Fleming of Greenhorn Radio. Community supported agriculture, organic, getting out, or grow where you are, feed the city, from the city. Our second guest, Sharon Astyk, says we need a nation of farmers…Radio Ecoshock digs in.
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.” Such is the summary not of ODAC, ITPOES or ASPO, but of the United States Joint Forces Command…
The Wall Street Journal reports that your Congress is considering measures that would “improve transparency and reduce risk in the derivatives market.” It is not surprising that there are obstacles to such reform. The Republicans oppose anything that might make the Democrats look good. The Big Banks oppose anything that might intrude upon their Privatize The Gains, Socialize The Losses (PGSL) business model and thus restrict their ability to take crazy risks to make obscene amounts of money.
-How world rice trade sparked price riots
-Our £17bn waste mountain: Annual bill for throwaway Britain
-Resistance to Weedkillers a Growing Problem for Engineered Crops, NAS Report Says
-In India, Wal-Mart Goes to the Farm
-What it will take to feed the world
-Report Says Contaminated Meat Is In Supermarkets
-Crop Diversity Pays Off
The enthusiasm of the Cameron Tories for community development and localism, and its convergence with the New Labour and Lib Dem ‘community empowerment’ agendas, suggests it is time to ask whether community development and community action, once a radical force in local politics, has been efectively depoliticised and incorporated as an arm of government. Has community radicalism been silenced, or is it more complicated than that?
Concerns are mounting about peak oil, and there continues to be much debate over when the peak will be reached, whether a plateau can be sustained or whether the onset of decline would occur quickly, whether we will hit peak demand before we hit peak supply, etc.
From activists to politicians, everybody loves to talk about the promise of green jobs. But in reality, who the heck actually has a green job, and how do you get one?
The pea, radish, lettuce, and quinoa sprouts have emerged in my new backyard garden, outracing the chervil, cilantro, carrot, and chard seeds—and Wayde Lawler, my new-found Hyperlocavore buddy, is responsible for all this.
When we think about the taxes and the federal deficit, we don’t usually think of Social Security and Medicare, because in government lingo, the payments we make for these programs aren’t taxes, they are contributions, and the funding deficit for these programs is not taken into account in determining the federal deficit.
